Dorothée and Land van Ons (Our Own Land).
From my early youth on an interest in flora and fauna, amazement about and admiration for everything connected with those, were installed in me as being something self-evident. My own garden is a small paradise with a great variety of plants, where birds, bees, butterflies and other insects enjoy themselves thoroughly. Honesty requires me to say that sometimes the garden drives me to despair. So much work, so many seeds which just refuse to germinate, so much failure in the veggie patch.
Anyway, in February 2020 I first read about Land van Ons, shortly after this cooperative had been founded. Land van Ons aims at buying plots of agricultural land in order to have them used and cultivated biologically, with a lot of focus on biodiversity. This suits me, and I became an enthusiastic member and bought my first square metres – currently I am the proud ‘owner’ of 185 square metres! I also hoped I might be accepted as an active volunteer.
This wish became reality when Land van Ons bought rather a big plot at the Onneresch (located between Haren and Onnen, in the province of Groningen), a beautiful parcel of historical agricultural landscape. I have been a member of the ‘plot team’ since, with communication for a task; I also do a lot of organising and writing, both for the local team and for the cooperative in general.
We’ve been working for three years now at creating ‘een boerenland vol leven’ (farmland full of life) at the Onneresch, which is an idyllical landscape, both open and confined with small differences in height, wooded banks and woodland (Appelbergen) for its boundaries, and solitary trees. For decades there were only meadows and pastures here, now there are also fields with flowery margins and a vast lake on the low-lying section of peatland.
Our farmer grows, amongst others, the long-forgotten buckwheat and camelina. These are flowering crops (biodiversity!), which grow well in poor soil and are able to cope with hot, dry periods. They yield, respectively, seeds of high quality which can be used as protein-rich grains, and a good oil, both for consumptive and cosmetic use. The cattle of the biodynamic farm graze in those parts which will remain pasture in transition to herb-rich grassland.
I would recommend anyone seeing the importance of biodiversity and a different way of agriculture to join Land van Ons!
© Dorothée Wortelboer 2024